Ortiz’s Explanation Is Unlikely to Reveal Much

David Ortiz will hold a news conference Saturday about his 2003 positive test. Court orders will restrict what he can say.Credit
Frank Franklin II/Associated Press

Since it was first reported nine days ago that the Red Sox slugger David Ortiz was among the roughly 100 major league baseball players who tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, he has repeatedly said he would get more information about the test result so he could provide an explanation.

Before the Yankees-Red Sox game Saturday afternoon, he and Michael Weiner, the incoming head of the players union, are scheduled to hold a news conference at Yankee Stadium. But Ortiz may not be allowed to explain much. The union acknowledged in a written statement Saturday morning that, because of court-ordered restrictions, it was limited in what it could say about the 2003 test.

The drug-testing information from 2003, which includes the substances for which the players tested positive, has been under a court seal since federal agents seized the information six years ago. A federal judge would have to issue a special order for that information to be disclosed, and such a motion has not been granted.

“The result is that any union member alleged to have tested positive in 2003 because his name supposedly appears on some list — most recently David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez — finds himself in an extremely unfair position,” Weiner said in the statement. “His reputation has been threatened by a violation of the court’s orders, but respect for those orders now leaves him without access to the information that might permit him to restore his good name.”

The court restrictions also mean that the Red Sox faithful, who largely adore Ortiz, may not get full disclosure. Ortiz was a fan favorite as he helped the franchise end an 86-year World Series championship drought and add another title three years later.

Knowing the exact substance that Ortiz tested positive for would shed significant light on what he might have put in his body in 2003. What his fans and peers think of him and his hitting feats could be influenced by what illicit substance he is linked to.

Officials in the commissioner’s office and the players union have said they believe at least 8 of the roughly 100 players who tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug in 2003 were using the supplement 19-norandrostenedione, which was sold over the counter at the time and contained a powerful steroid. If Ortiz was among those eight players, he could contend that his positive test was caused by an over-the-counter supplement.

To prevent players who were using supplements from testing positive, each test conducted in 2003 consisted of two collections, Weiner said.

“The first was unannounced and random, the second was approximately seven days later, with the player advised to cease taking supplements during the interim,” he said in the statement. “Under the 2003 program, a test could be initially reported as ‘positive,’ but not treated as such by the bargaining parties on account of the second test.”

Whatever Ortiz says Saturday, it may be difficult for him to make the case that he has been caught unaware, which he maintained when The New York Times first reported last week that he was on the list. All players who tested positive in 2003 were told that their tests had been seized by the government, according to the report presented to Major League Baseball by George J. Mitchell, who headed an investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

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The news conference will mark the first time that Weiner speaks at a high-profile event as the face of the union. A lawyer for the union since 1988, he was recently selected to replace Donald Fehr. Weiner has run many of the day-to-day operations of the union for the past several years, including dealing with the commissioner’s office on performance-enhancing drug issues.

Now he will address the Ortiz situation as a chorus of players, managers and former players are expressing frustration over the list not being fully revealed.

“Can somebody in baseball, please, we’re all begging, people, get that stupid list out and move on?” White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen told reporters last week. “This is ridiculous. This is embarrassing. This is a joke. Whoever is there is there; get them out and that’s it.”

The 2003 tests were not promptly destroyed, and federal agents on the West Coast who were investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative seized them in 2004. The union and the federal government have been fighting in the federal courts since the tests were seized over whether the government can keep them. The union, which promised the players that their results from 2003 would never be known, wants to protect the players. The government intends to use the tests to question players about where they received illegal substances in an effort to target distributors.

In a statement Saturday morning, Major League Baseball said it did not possess the list of names of players who tested positive in 2003.

The players’ names could later become public if the government uses their testimony in court documents or calls them as witnesses at a trial.

This year, the names of four players who tested positive in 2003 have been revealed in news media reports: Alex Rodriguez, Sammy Sosa, Ortiz and Ramirez.

Ramirez was Ortiz’s slugging teammate with the Red Sox through their title runs. Now with the Dodgers, he was suspended earlier this year for violating baseball’s performance-enhancing drug policy.

He has not discussed his 2003 test and said he would talk only about baseball with members of the news media.

A version of this news analysis appears in print on , on Page D3 of the New York edition with the headline: Ortiz’s Explanation Is Unlikely To Reveal Much. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe